Level one is the wedding becoming a statement. In 2025, Afrobeats star Davido reportedly spent around $3.7 million on his white wedding to Chioma in Miami. It followed a traditional Nigerian ceremony in which guests sprayed cash over the couple. That is a long-standing West African custom, where publicly giving money is a blessing, a show of goodwill, and practical support for newlyweds. Two ceremonies, two countries, two kinds of spectacle: tradition at home, glamour abroad.

Then there is level two. Musician Mr. Eazi and Temi Otedola who got married in multiple countries. Yes, different ceremonies were held in different countries. A civil wedding in Monaco, traditional wedding in Dubai and a white wedding in Iceland.

 The Ambani standard, makes level two look like a holiday spree.

When Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant married in 2024, the celebrations began long before the wedding night. The pre-wedding in Jamnagar hosted around 1,200 guests, many flown in on chartered planes. The menu reportedly ran to about 500 dishes prepared by 100 chefs, and Rihanna performed.

Then came a four-day Mediterranean cruise. Around 800 guests travelled through Palermo, Rome, Cannes and Portofino, with performances from the Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry, David Guetta and Pitbull along the way. In Portofino, access to parts of the village was reportedly restricted for the celebrations, and Andrea Bocelli sang in the middle of the piazza. At this level, booking a venue is no longer enough. You book the village.

The wedding itself took place in Mumbai, and the guest list looked like Bollywood, Hollywood, Davos and the G20 had merged. Kim and Khloé Kardashian, Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas, Shah Rukh Khan and John Cena were there. So were former British prime ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson, the Samsung chairman, the Saudi Aramco CEO and the FIFA president, alongside a long roster of Indian business leaders, politicians and cricketers. At some point you have to ask whether the couple were getting married or launching a small nation.

There is one more level, and it needs no travel at all. In 2020 in Mexico, Alejandrina Guzmán, daughter of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, married in the cathedral of Culiacán. The cathedral was closed for the ceremony, the surrounding area was reportedly cordoned off, and the reception featured musicians and a private fireworks display.

It was widely read as more than a family celebration. With her father in prison, the wedding was a public reminder that the family still carried enormous social influence in the region. The Ambanis bought space and spectacle. This wedding displayed power.

The Ambanis are an extreme case, but the ladder is not just for billionaires. Wedding excess does not disappear when the money does.

In rural South India, a typical household can spend around seven times its annual income on a daughter’s marriage, including the wedding and dowry payments. For a household earning $5,000 a year, that is roughly $35,000 for one marriage, and many families go into debt to pay for it. In Uganda , one study found couples spend an average of 15.5 months of household income on their weddings, and about three-quarters went into debt afterwards.

The reason is social. In many communities a wedding tells people how generous your family is, how well connected it is, and whether you know how to honour your guests. Gifts are remembered, hospitality is remembered, and so is the catering.

That is why things can turn violent. In Uttar Pradesh in 2018, a wedding reportedly ran out of plates, and an argument among guests escalated into a fight. Four people were injured and one man died. In Bihar in 2026, a groom’s side reportedly promised mutton was served chicken instead, and the dispute led to a brawl involving sticks, reports of swords, and dozens of injured guests.

The cash tradition has its own dark side. In 2021 in Delta State, Nigeria , a 15-year-old boy at a wedding reportedly tried to pick up sprayed money and was fatally stabbed by a bouncer. The Central Bank of Nigeria now treats spraying the naira at social events as an illegal abuse of the currency, and a Nigerian actress was questioned by anti-corruption officials after videos from her daughter’s wedding showed guests spraying notes.

However, across all these levels, the pattern is the same. Feeding people is an act of honour. Giving money is a blessing. Dressing lavishly shows respect, and hosting hundreds of guests reinforces relationships that have lasted generations. None of that is ridiculous. What becomes ridiculous is the pressure to do it bigger, louder and more publicly. For an Ambani, that means taking over Portofino. For a family in rural India or Uganda, it means borrowing more than they can afford. For a wedding party in Bihar, it meant learning that chicken served after a promise of mutton can be a matter of life and death. At a wedding, you are rarely paying only for the day. You are paying for what that day says about you.

So which level would you choose? A beach and a flight for the people you love, a second ceremony abroad, a cruise with a guest list that needs its own security detail, or a cathedral closed for your arrival? And the harder question: how far would you go before the wedding stops being about the two of you and starts being about everyone watching?

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